The Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau has once again reiterated that he would “normalize” relations with the Islamic Regime in Iran if the Liberal Party wins this year’s elections! Justin Trudeau has made it clear in the past that he has no issue with the dictatorship in Iran, which should not come as a surprise, given the fact that Mr. Trudeau seems to admire dictatorships including the dictatorship in China.

Mr. Trudeau seems to not have heard of the wave of executions which has taken place in Iran since the August of 2013, when the so called moderate Rouhani became the president. He must also have no information on the thousands of political prisoners including journalists, lawyers, students and religious and ethnic minorities who spend years in Islamic Regime prisoners for their “political crimes.” He must certainly not be aware of the systematic persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, women, students, teachers, workers, activists and homosexuals. He doesn’t know or he doesn’t care, but as an Iranian/Canadian pro-democracy activist either scenario terrifies me!

Canada has a large Iranian Canadian community which I am a part of. Many of us have been forced to flee from the Islamic Regime in Iran to save our own lives or the lives of individuals that we love. Many in our community have been imprisoned and tortured or have lost loved ones at the hands of this brutal regime! We consider Canada our home and safe haven, and respect Canadian values such as freedom and democracy. I feel safe and protected in Canada knowing that I can speak out against the Islamic Regime without being arrested, tortured, raped and possibly executed!

I was one of many Iranians that were thrilled when the Islamic Regime’s Embassy (the House of Terror) in Ottawa was shut down, as the Regime would no longer be able to use the Embassy to spy on and threaten dissidents in Canada or their families back in Iran.

Now it seems like Mr. Trudeau wants to roll back the clock, normalize relations and re-open the “House of Terror” in Ottawa. As a Canadian I am terrified of what Canada will become if the Liberal Party wins the elections and Mr. Trudeau becomes the Prime Minister. The fact that he wants to have normalized relations with the Islamic Regime in Iran is a clear indication that he is willing to turn a blind eye not only to the grotesque human rights violations the Regime is responsible for, but also to the Regime’s financial support for international terrorism and its dangerous nuclear ambitions!

If Mr. Trudeau wants the Iranian-Canadian vote he will have to engage the Iranian pro-democracy movement instead of the dictatorship in Iran, and he will have to prove that he is a supporter of freedom and democracy, not tyranny and brutality!

Sayeh Hassan is an Iranian Canadian lawyer and pro-democracy activists fighting to overthrow the Islamic Regime in Iran

In the wake of devastating terrorist attacks in Paris, in which journalists, police, and Jews were targeted with ferocity, many are left bewildered by the fact that such violent acts could take place in one of the world’s most beautiful, open, and cosmopolitan cities.

Such brutality seems like the purview of dictatorships in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Islamic dictatorships. As someone who was born in Iran and forced to flee the country in the 1980’s, I know what it is like to live in a society crushed under the weight of theocracy. In Iran today, the regime regularly uses public hangings, torture by electrocution, flogging, and rape as tools to destroy dissent.

If Iran represents the dangers of a state run by extremist Shia Ayatollahs, Saudi Arabia reflects its equally radical Sunni counterpart. We know about the "Chop Chop Square" in Riyadh, where people are beheaded after Friday Prayer and peaceful activists are flogged for questioning Islam or advocating freedom and equality. Just recently, a young blogger and activist Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment and one thousand lashes by Saudi authorities for criticizing Islam and calling for reform and moderation. He is to be lashed fifty times every Friday after the Friday prayer for twenty weeks, a sentence befitting the medieval era. Badawi received the first fifty lashes on Friday, January 9th.

These and other atrocities around the world, including the slaughter of hundreds of innocents at the hands of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, evoke sadness – but rarely action – in the West. There is an unspoken sense that, after all, these are not our problems, they unfold in distant lands, and Islamic dictatorships, however brutal, do not affect our lives.

In ignoring the floggings, assaults, and beheadings, Western governments and consumers alike turn a blind eye to some of the worst human rights abusers in modern history. One can only conclude that cheap oil, which should aptly be called "blood oil", accounts for much of the absence of outrage (and in some cases outright appeasement of such states). A democracy like Canada, the United States, or Israel would never be able to get away with lashing a peaceful activist as is Saudi Arabia right now. That the Saudis are doing so openly, in the knowledge that Western governments will raise no real protest and Western media will fail to provide serious coverage, only speaks to the fact that cynicism and barbarism go hand-in-hand.

Meanwhile, the Islamic regime in Iran has managed to stall any kind of agreement on the nuclear issue, and just this week announced the construction of two additional atomic facilities. This is particularly egregious given that the P5+1 powers negotiating the nuclear issue had both extended the deadline for negotiations and provided sanctions relief for the regime. All of which is to say, a regime that regularly sponsors terrorism worldwide and abuses human rights at home probably cannot be expected to negotiate and uphold a nuclear agreement in good faith. Were it not for the immense oil revenues that have sustained the regime since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran would be in a fundamentally different position today.

We should not fail to see the link between international terrorism today and the oil-funded hubs of extremism abroad, particularly when it comes to Iran and Saudi Arabia. It should come as no surprise that the same countries that abuse their own people in the name of religion are among the primary sources of inspiration and funding for extremist Islamist movements, including terror groups. In so doing, they have ultimately laid the foundations of the same strain of violent extremism being fought in the streets of Paris this month.

As petroleum customers, Western nations ignore such brutal – and brutally obvious – facts at their own peril.

Sayeh Hassan is a criminal defence lawyer in Toronto and a pro-democracy activist fighting to change Iran’s Islamic regime.

I refer to the Saudi Arabian oil as BLOOD-OIL because the wealth from the oil goes to support an extremist Islamic kingdom that lashes thinkers, activists and those who dare to question Islam. It chops heads and limbs in the so called "chop chop square" and their treatment of women is medieval! Yet Saudi Arabi is a close ally of many western countries precisely because of the BLOOD-OIL. It is shameful that most western countries have remained silent as has the main stream media while Raif Badawi a journalist will be lashed 1000 times in the next 20 weeks in the "chop chop square!"

When will we realize that the terrorist acts we have been witnessing most recently in Paris is rooted in the support of Western Countries for Islamic Dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and Iran?? Would Israel or Canada or the United States be able to get away with flogging someone 1000 in a public square?

About This Writer

Sayeh Hassan is a criminal defense lawyer with Walter Fox & Associates and an Iranian Pro-Democracy activist. She is the author of the shiro-khorshid-forever blog (www.shiro-khorshid-forever.blogspot.com) which focuses on the pro-democracy movement and Regime Change in Iran. Through her pro-democracy activities she stays in close contact with activists in Iran as well as retaining contacts with various human rights and pro-democracy organizations abroad. She regularly speaks at conferences, has appeared on television and radio programs and her writing has been published by publications such as National Post, Toronto Star & Ottawa Citizen. She can be contacted at sayehhassan30@gmail.com